7 Responses to Undercounting the transit constituency

I believe that over 50% of people who work in Toronto’s CBD arrive on transit but peak period riders account for less than 50% of the Toronto Transit Commission’s total ridership. Off peak riding is a lot cheaper to provide for than peak period as there are usually no new capitol costs, just operating costs and you are making more efficient use of equipment and labour. Metrolinx, the regional agency that runs the GO transit commuter rail and bus system, is improving off peak service and starting to provide two way all day service on most of the rail lines aiming for a 15 minute off peak service. They are investing a lot of money in double tracking and signal improvements to provide for this. A main problem is in getting enough railway qualified engineers to operate the trains as they need two years of rail experience before they can qualify. Once you have good off peak service you can induce more people to use transit to get to work as they no they can get home if they have to stay late.

Amusingly, my transit trips got *overcounted* by this standard survey question of “how do you usually commute to work?” Sometimes I walk, sometimes I ride my bike, on rare occasions my wife gives me a ride in our 1 family car, but I use transit for over 50% of commute trips. So I answered transit, and it “counted” as 100%, just as inaccurately as the the opposite case.

This is a dangerous line of reasoning in that it encourages transport providers to regard transit time and reliability as an afterthought. If one’s bus to the mall is late or doesn’t who up at all, the mall and all its merchants will still be waiting. If one’s bus to work doesn’t show up or wanders in way late, one cannot expect the same from one’s boss. This publication encourages transit agencies to think their passengers are making discretionary trips and won’t care if their transit takes far too long or simply doesn’t show up. Oh and BTW a (wo)man going to their dentist in severe pain also falls into this “discretionary” category. There’s already far too much “close enough for government work” in the transit business, you should not do anything that even faintly encourages it.

The Author

Since 1991 I've been a consulting transit planner, helping to design transit networks and policies for a huge range of communities. My goal here is to start conversations about how transit works, and how we can use it to create better cities and towns. Read more.